we both pretend (but i know that i start where you end)
by safeandsound13
Summary: "You're not like, going to ask me to shave my head, too, right?" "God no." She squints her eyes at him like she's imagining it. "You'd look like a giant-fat, bald baby." / Or, Octavia's pissed the thing her brother and best friend finally bond over is the fact Clarke has cancer.


_._

 _"I HAVE no life but this,_

 _To lead it here;_

 _Nor any death, but lest_

 _Dispelled from there;_

 _Nor tie to earths to come,_

 _Nor action new,_

 _Except through this extent,_

 _The realm of you."_

-Emily Dickinson

 _._

 _i'll put your poison in my veins_  
 _they say the best love is insane_  
 _i'll light your fire till my last day_  
 _i'll let your fields burn around me_

. &.

He and Clarke, they're not really friends. She's his sister's friend and he's her friend's brother so they're _friendly_ , but they're not friends. They don't even say hi like normal people, they just nod in acknowledgement and offer the occasional "I see you, but I don't actually really care you're here" grunt. The only thing they agree on is that they mostly just disagree on everything except for Donald Trump-they're both very vocal on the level of asshat they think he is.

It's not like he hopes that every free parking spot she finds actually has a motorcycle parked there, or that both sides of her pillow are warm, or that like, every time she wears earbuds they snag on every door handle she passes-but he can't pretend like he isn't relieved when some days Octavia informs him she's going over to Clarke's, instead of her coming over.

He never really second-guessed it, because that's just the way things were. He didn't think twice about Octavia not even knowing Miller's first name either, so why should Clarke be different, really. They have no common ground except for Octavia. She's in med school and he is a teacher at a high school. He likes silence and history documentaries and she likes to yell at fictional characters on crime shows because ' _crime shows are art and art is life_ '. She's pretty and soft and blonde and he's, well. Not.

That's until he finds her on his bathroom floor in the middle of the night. Octavia is passed out half on the couch, half on the coffee table in his living room. He had heard some wild stories about their nights out, and it wouldn't be the first time that his toilet was used for other purposes than number one and two, but this time it was on a completely new level of ' _okay, what the fuck?_ '.

He's halfway through half-assing an apology for walking in on her, peaking through his fingers, when he notices the state she's in. Her wavy hair's up in a messy bun, mascara smudged under her eyes, skin splotched red from being so worked up as she leans over the closed lid of his toilet.

"You're wearing sequins," he notes, dumbly, because it's all he can really say to point out she looks different beside actually pointing out she looks different. He's not supposed to notice that sort of stuff, stuff like that Clarke only ever wears dark colors and has a strict policy against anything that glitters.

"I have cancer," she responds, voice more hoarse than usual as silent tears spill from her eyes.

She has _cancer_. Okay. There's a split second he thinks she might be joking, but he knows enough about her to know she would never lie about something like that. He pulls himself together enough as he slides down the tiled wall next to her, keeping a considerable distance. "Why the sequins though?"

Strict avoidance ® and active denial ® are kind of his things.

"I figured that if I was going to die I was going to do some things to deserve it," she shrugs idly, wiping at the mascara streaking her pale skin with the inside of her wrists before leaning her head back against the tiles. Her hands still tremble when she rests them on her thighs.

"Total lifegoals. That's the spirit."

She smiles despite herself and his bad humor before it's quiet for a moment. His hand hovers over hers for a second before he puts it down over hers, "You'll kick cancer's ass, Clarke. This is just a small inconvenience on your road to eternal life and medical fame. Traffic jam."

She finally turns her head, but only to suspiciously and slightly squint her eyes at him, "Why are you being nice?"

"Isn't that kind of the etiquette when someone confesses they have cancer?"

"Fair enough." She sniffs, then wraps her fingers around his hand and squeezes. Her hand is clammy and soft. "I wanted to tell her, tonight, I mean. But, I-I couldn't. I hate myself for being so weak." A humourless laugh follows, as she throws her free hand in the air like she's asking the universe why. " _Literally_. There's something wrong inside of me and I can't fix it." The pained smile on her face fades as she turns to face him, voice softer than before, "I can't-I couldn't tell her."

"So you tell her brother you kind of hate you have cancer perched over a toilet? That sounds like a bad The Onion headline."

"If it's worth anything, I don't hate you."

"Wow, do you have one of those personality changing tumors?"

"Nah, my bone marrow is screwing me over."

There's more silence before he sighs. Because, fuck. She has cancer.

"I'm sorry, Clarke," he offers, genuinely. He stares ahead, looking at nothing in particular, eyebrows raised. "Want to hear a joke?"

She huffs, "You're so fucking lame, Blake," before shrugging anyway as she sags against his arm, too tired to give a fuck about social acceptableness when it comes to the guy you don't really like and is kind of your friend's brother. Deadpanning like she has nothing else to lose, "Why not?"

"Knock knock."

"Seriously?"

"Come on," he presses, nudging her with his shoulder and trying really hard not to smirk since she did just tell him she has cancer. He's a little behind on what to do and not to do in this situation. There must be a pamphlet somewhere with some usual information, something like ' _My Kinda Friend But Also Kinda Enemy Just Told Me She Has Cancer_ '.

She pinches the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut like it goes against everything she believes in as she forces out a, "Who's there?"

"Not your white blood cells, that's for damn sure."

She laughs, loud and bold, pressing her smile against his arm. "It's funny because I have cancer."

He grins, pressing a kiss against her blonde hair because he feels like she needs it. Bellamy opens his mouth to speak, head leaning back on the wall but closes it again. There's a pause. "You're not like, going to ask me to shave my head, too, right?"

" _God no_." She squints her eyes at him like she's imagining it. "You'd look like a giant- _fat_ … bald baby." There's a beat. "And God. _Soooo_ ugly."

He rolls his eyes, slightly shifting his head so he can look down at her and feel like he's at least _directing_ his irritation at her. "Didn't really hold back there at all, did you?"

She clicks her tongue. "Did not even try."

.

He goes with her to one of her appointments, because she tells him she doesn't want her mom to know just yet (he respects that because fuck, who doesn't have parental issues?) and some bulllshit thing about how patients forget two-thirds of what a doctor tells them before they even leave the office. She's still a med-student, even when she can't physically be one at the moment. He only does it so she can't lie about the outcome and use it as a reason to not tell anyone else. She'll do anything to protect her friends. He feels like she needs some protection from herself.

They meet some of her former classmates while they're in the cafeteria, and he gets it. The hesitance to tell other people. He sees the pity eyes and the polite, awkward 'statistically speaking we had the same odds of getting this disease but you're sick and I'm not' smiles. Even the tiny thankful sighs of 'thank god it isn't me'. It's fucked up, but it happens.

"Does it bother you?" He asks, when a douche named Cage finally got the hint (read: stopped making eye-contact with his reflection in Clarke's spoon to find Bellamy glaring holes in his face since his friend is pretending to be too polite to kick his feet out from under him) that his eight minute long rant on ' _alternative therapies and clinical trials in your practically morbid case_ ' wasn't really necessary. He bites off the top of his hotdog and chews a few times before continuing, "that they're doing what you're supposed to be doing with them?"

She sighs, shrugging a little as she mindlessly stirs her coffee with a spoon. "Not really. I mean-I'm sure I'll get there someday when I have enough 'real life experience', as a patient." She air quotes, skeptical smile on her face as she brings her cup to her lips and takes a small sip.

He douches up his voice a little, so he sounds like her shit intern friend. "Oh, but, Clarke! It'll make you _super_ empathic and full of unadulterated hope and personalized wisdom. You'll be _less_ emo punk who thinks she knows everything better, _more_ ray of positive sunshine with the complimentary perky voice."

She slaps her hand down on her thigh, looking at him with wild, excited eyes, "Damn, I knew cancer was good for something." It's a little scary how good Clarke is at faking valley girl.

He smirks, wiping his hands on his jeans as he finishes his food, "If the whole doctor thing doesn't work out you can always sell those drawings of my hands for money online. I'm sure there's at least one person out there who idolizes them as much as you."

"You're an ass and I hate you. I was vulnerable and a little drunk and you practically forced me to. I obviously made a mistake showing you and I will ritually burn all of them."

"Good. Get out all of that emo punk before it's too late."

.

"Guys," Clarke clears her throat at one of their usual gatherings, glancing over at him warily as she turns down the mix her (and Raven's) ex Finn made (including a suspicious amount of boyband songs) that they were ironically listening to. "I have to tell you something."

He gives her a nod of encouragement, taking a sip of his beer to get his alcohol level up just a little faster. He's going to need it.

Octavia sends him an even warier look because of it, "Oh my God. Are you two…" She narrows her eyes, pointing in between the two of them with an accusing finger and her nose scrunched up in disgust. Raven catcalls and Wick whistles suggestively. He makes a side-note that who ever hooked them up needs to a) suffer b) handed all the awards in the world c) yeah, just _suffer_.

It started as just the three of them in his shoebox apartment (although O liked to claim it was also hers when she paid zero rent) and then Bellamy had to invite Miller to neutralize the situation, since that was the fair thing honestly. Octavia responded by inviting Raven and then it just escalated (she brought Lincoln-her big, tattooed boyfriend-and he countered by bringing Echo-one of his one night stands-to which his sister slammed the door in her face and eventually led to the infamous Blake Thanksgiving Food Fight Of 2k12) until they ran out of friends to invite.

Jasper-scrawny guy always equipped with a pair of reading glasses around his neck even though Bellamy is eighty percent sure his sight is fine ( _hipsters_ )-responds with an overdramatic gasp, elbowing Miller's boyfriend Monty in the ribs with an expectant look on his face.

"Are you having a seizure?" He can't help but ask. Okay, _grunt_. Whatever. He's not bitter because he's old.

" _You_ two are...?" Miller makes regular people looking unimpressed unimpressive as he uses one finger to motion in between them.

"Boning? No. Fun fact: my boning body is boning killing me from the boning inside." She offers a tight, fake smile and two thumbs up before finishing her beer in one gulp.

"Okay… Wait- _what_?" Raven scrambles up from her slouched position on his couch, almost elbowing her boyfriend in the face.

Murphy holds up his hands in defense (of his own intelligence level or because he's secretly intimidated by at least 90 percent of the people in this room? the world will never know). "I'm way too buzzed to get if that's some sort of sex analogy or not."

Clarke takes a deep breath before blurting out, "I have boning cancer. Okay. Who needs a drink?" She slams a shot down her throat before anyone can respond. She jerks another one out of Octavia's hand and slams that down, too.

Most of them cry (and it's ugly), Clarke hugs them all and promises she'll be okay. He awkwardly pats Jasper's back while he sobs for fifteen minutes straight. It's a mess.

Eventually some of them leave, or fall asleep somewhere that possibly the least convenient place for him (like, in his bed, _Miller_ ) and he decides to just do the dishes. He wants to feel even just a little productive, especially since his buzz was pretty much killed after he watched Wick snivel against Raven's shoulder.

Octavia finds him about five minutes in. Her arms are crossed as she leans against the door opening. "So you and Clarke, huh? Finally bonding. Over cancer."

He rolls his eyes, throwing the dishrag over his shoulder as he puts another glass in the lukewarm water. "We're not painting each other's nails and braiding each other's hair, O. I happened to walk in on her crying and shit happened."

"Sure. Just-"

"Just what?" He grunts, annoyed at her prying behaviour.

"Nothing."

.

 **TO CLARKE**

11:58 pm

 _u tell ur mom yet?_

 **TO BELLAMY**

12:01 am

 _I'll call her in the morning, daddy :)_

 **TO CLARKE**

12:06 am

 _that's a weirdly sexual thing to say. what are u wearing?_

 **TO BELLAMY**

12:08 am

 _Ha. Joke's on you, Blake. It's washing day. Granny panties and Octavia's old bikini top. Oh yeah._

 **TO CLARKE**

12:11 am

 _did u have to bring my sister into this, grossface?_

 **TO BELLAMY**

12:14 am

 _Because I'm a totally nice person I'll let 'grossface' slide and won't screenshot this to whip up an elaborate powerpoint presentation to showcase at your wedding to make sure you end up bitter and alone. Even though you completely deserve it after this. :/_

 **TO CLARKE**

07:19 am

 _call ur mom, grossface._

.

"O here?" She barges into his apartment like it's no big deal, throwing her keys next to his on the entry table. He doesn't even bother looking up from the papers he's supposed to be grading, even though he's actually just stuffing dry cereal down his face and questioning why he ever decided to become a teacher in the first place.

"Nah," he retorts, all casual and not caring what she does while she waits for his sister before he connects the dots. There's so much shit that could be up. He breaks eye-contact with a student who named his paper about the greek goddesses and cup-bearers Hêbê and Ganymede 'two girls, one cup' (he was deciding between an a+ or a f-) to send her a concerned look, "You need something? You feel sick? Did the doctor call you back?"

"Chill," she laughs, yanking the box out of his hands and shaking some of it into her mouth. She chews a few times before, "I already have one overprotective mother. I don't need another."

He snorts, rubbing his eyes as he sits back in his chair, "That bad?"

"She called my doctor and demanded he send over the files so she could ' _judge his incompetent ass from DC_ ' and ' _offer him some actual sense when it comes to my daughter_ '. This not even five minutes after we hung up." Clarke rolls her eyes, slouching down in a kitchen chair at the head of the table.

She sighs, shoving the cereal back his way as she kicks her feet onto the table and rests her hands on her stomach. "She blames him for not catching it sooner. Like _I_ shouldn't have gone to the doctor when I had a bruise the size of my head on my back and kept bleeding out of my nose for no apparent reason."

Clarke had always been stubborn, but not dumb. Not going to the doctor while you're a med-student with strange medical symptoms was pretty dumb, if you ask him-non-med-student regular history loving dummy. He'll tell her this when she's like, 89 percent in the clear.

He shoves her feet back off with a pointed look as he considers it. "So you… _don't_ want her to yell at your doctor but… at _you_?"

"Shut up. I'm just an avid believer in yelling at the right people for the right reasons."

"Such an egalitarian." He nods at her. "Why you here? Octavia won't be home for probably another half an hour."

She purses her lips, "uhm-" He narrows his eyes at her because, _that_ , that small sliver of hesitance is a mistake.

"I know we're not like best friends, but." He shrugs idly. "I don't know. You can tell me stuff, too."

"Gee, you sure?" She retorts skeptically as she leans back like she's ready to enjoy watching him squirm.

"Yes," he retorts because technically there are some things he could live without knowing, but technically he'd also die if he admits that and Clarke wins.

"My eggs need to be possibly fertilized and definitely frozen in case chemo fucks up my reproductive organs. My uterus and ovaries, mainly."

He inhales sharply as he tries to process and her smirk widens, leaning forward and resting her elbows on the table, intertwining her fingers. He swallows tightly, "Is that all?"

She cocks an eyebrow as she stares him down, like any second now he'll cringe and cry and run away. He won't give her the satisfaction. He grins, "What you expected me to tense up at the mention of the word uterus and say shit like 'go make me a sandwich' to keep my masculinity intact?"

She raises her eyebrows further into hairline, leaning back once again and crossing her arms over her chest. She studies his face and he feels a little awkward and kind of warm under her gaze so he breaks the silence, "The only eggs you should be talking about are in the kitchen."

She cracks a genuine smile at that, raising her middle-finger at him in the least classy way. "Well, there's one upside. Since I'm all cancer-y _and_ under 30, I'll have the best chance at becoming pregnant after chemo."

He feigns shock, pressing a hand over his heart, "Wow, and they say you're unlucky." She laughs and he's glad it still sounds the same, even though so much has changed.

She shifts in her seat, pulling her knees up to her chest as she starts plucking at a staple on one of his papers. She doesn't look at him when she says, "I'm deciding if I want kids and start chemo in a month or if I don't want kids and start chemo next week."

His chair makes a loud scratching sound on the floor when he stands up, stretching a little. "I'd want kids." He realizes _how_ exactly that sounds as he reaches into his freezer and takes out some ice cream and a spoon, sliding it over the kitchen table while he talks (read: saves his own ass from implying he wants kids, _with_ Clarke). "If I were in your position, I mean. You love kids. Didn't you cry about that commercial with the diapers?"

"I was on my period," she excuses herself as she takes more than a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. He's kind of in awe at how she's _not_ dying of brain freeze right now. "Man, not having my period for six months is kind of a perk."

"See, add that to your list of reasons to _thank baby jesus I have cancer_."

He watches her eat more of his ice cream (that he might or might not actually have bought for her anyway-who the fuck even likes pistachio? who is she?) before he clears his throat, a little awkwardly as he stumbles on his words, "You want like, me, to… I don't know, like-" He widens his eyes as he nods at her, like that's supposed to mean something.

"Spit it out already, Blake."

It's best to just rip the bandaid off before he gets a stroke from winding himself up so much. "Fertilize your eggs?"

She laughs, like it's a joke and he doesn't have a million uncomfortable feelings right now. She chokes on her ice cream, when she realizes it's not. "No! No, thank you. I mean our kids would be super hot but- _no_. Our friendship is not that evolved-that I, I'd want to have _children_ with you. I'll just freeze them and see what happens."

He lets out a sigh of relief. Maybe it's saying something that's he thirty-one and the thought of having children actively scares him, but that's a different conversation.

Octavia comes in, since she seems to have some sort of biological timer for this sort of shit, throwing her bag over an empty chair as she nods at the both of them. "Sup?"

"Nothing," he groans at the same time Clarke grins dangerously. "Bellamy just offered me his sperm."

His sister, mid-ice-tea sip, practically chokes, eyes widened as she looks at him. "You forreal?"

"I was trying not to be an asshole, in case you wanted to ask, but were afraid of my reaction or, I don't know, something." He sighs, running his hand through his curls. " _Shit_." He may or may not be blushing like an idiot right now and he may or may not be wishing a comet would fall out of the sky and crush him right this second.

"Sure. You just want to have my babies admit it."

He collects his papers, shoving his read pen down his pocket as he looks between the two of them, hoping they don't notice the flush down his neck. "I guess Octavia will take it from here?"

"Damn straight. Now get out of here before you offer to marry her for a discount on taxes, or, I don't know, something equally dumb."

.

He comes home from a tiring day at work to find his sister and Clarke curled up on the couch together, asleep. He double-checks, since it's only like ten pm and Octavia once yelled at him for going to bed before midnight. He believes she used to words 'boring ass grandpa'. God, he can't wait till she moves out.

There's dried blood on Clarke's face, and instead of her rubbing it all over his white couch and like, sleeping with blood on her face (he has his priorities, okay. IKEA is brutal), he shakes her lightly. "Clarke. Wake up. _Clarke_."

She blinks at him a few times before slowly sitting up, rubbing her eyes, "You're not Scarlett Johansson in a tight leather outfit."

"Unfortunately, no." He grins, patting her leg since he's still kneeled in front of her, "I think you had a nosebleed, princess."

"You know I want to stab a fork in your eye every time you call me that," she mentions in a groggy I'm Still Half Asleep But One Hundred Percent Aware That I Hate Your Ass as he rises to his feet and offers her a hand to pull her up, too.

"You know that's why I do it." He teasing grin widens as she half stumbles into his arms, shaking her head softly like that'll jump-start her motor functions. He pulls on her hand, nudging his head towards the kitchen. "Come on. I'll help you."

She mumbles something he can't quite hear as she, with great difficulty but still too proud to ask for help, slides on top of the counter. He looks for some gauze in the pantry that he _knows_ he has since a lot of drunken accidents seem to happen here (exhibit a: Raven almost broke Miller's nose during a beer pong victory dance. exhibit b: Jasper was so devastated he lost, he slipped and hit his head on the corner of the table. exhibit c: Monty tried to help Jasper at the same time as he tried to get up and tripped _over him_ , his leg scraping against the same corner of the same table. There was blood, _everywhere_.). The only difference is that Clarke is usually the one patching everyone up. Since it looks like she's already back to a state of 'sleeping with eyes open', he thinks that won't be the case tonight.

"It's fine," she mumbles, head leaning against the refrigerator as he turns on the faucet and dampens the cloth a little. He presses it against her chin and starts cleaning it up carefully. She manage to pry one eye open to watch him, "I've been nice and chilly all week, too. I sweat, a lot. I have bruises the size of your fist."

"Couldn't you get something cool instead? Like, bleeding from the eyes. At least you could scare the shit out of people you hate. Pretend to be a demon."

Talking doesn't make his job easier, but it does ease his mind a little. Yeah, he knew Clarke was still _Clarke_ , but it felt good to be reminded of that sometimes.

"Totally. I could even make money off of that. Use it to open up a circus to showcase diseases with sick side effects."

She sits up a little as he moves to get a clean cloth, watches him as he starts working on her lips. They're soft and pink and he feels a little hot because she's _watching_ him touching her _lips_ and he's avoiding eye contact like his life depends on it. It probably does. One wrong move and he won't ever hear the end of it.

When he finally reaches her philtrum she's still watching him. "You know you really don't have to do all this stuff for me, right? You don't owe me anything. If I die ghost me won't haunt you because we had that fight about Bernie Sanders hypothetically looking better with a jewfro or a creepy ponytail one time."

He narrows his eyes, but still refuses to look at her, like it'll give away something she isn't supposed to know. He knows he doesn't owe her anything, in fact, it's kind of shady he cares all of a sudden anyway. But. He does. He does care about Clarke. Arguing with her, even if won't ever admit it, was kind of the best part of his day. So it's kind of infuriating that she's so casual about it, like it won't matter if they're in each other's lives anyway. He can't even be mad at her for it-not because of the cancer, but because of _him_. He's a dick. So, in response, he grumbles, "Stop talking I'm working."

When he finishes cleaning her nose, throws the last cloth in the sink to get rid of later and washes his hands-there's this weird moment in which they say nothing and do nothing and just are. It's kind of intense.

Finally, she reaches out to squeeze his shoulder. He looks down at her fingers wrapped around the material of his henley, eyebrows raised as he looks back at her, amused. She smiles, and it keeps stretching until he's blinded by her teeth, before leaning forward and sloppily pressing her lips against his cheek. "Thanks."

He's not like head over heels in love with Clarke ever since the moment he met her. Really. That's not the case. He just… Doesn't feel the same about her as the others.

"No problem, princess."

"I _hate_ you."

.

He has a college degree-he should've _known_ something was up when Wells flew in from halfway across the country. He never just flies in since running a presidential campaign and saving America usually triumphed their tiny life problems. He goddamn should've known.

Technically, he gets to blame Clarke for this. Clarke met Lincoln during college when he was her TA in some hipster art class she took. Wells still went to school with Clarke at that point, and since he's like the best fucking person ever, him and Lincoln hit off, too. Wells, _Clarke_ 's eternal bff, suggested introducing him to Octavia and the blonde did the rest. Look where they're at now.

He's down on his knee asking Octavia to marry him and Bellamy doesn't even get to sulk about it because he's like. An _adult_ with actual problems besides his little sister marrying a pretty great guy that only he has eyes for her, and he's a bigger person than pettiness and overprotectiveness and claiming people and all that shit. He just-she's his little sister and he's never had anyone else take care of her besides him and herself. She was responsibility since they day she was born and now he just felt _sad,_ like a part of him was dying. It was lame.

Him and Raven bitterly sit on the couch, staring at their friends fawning over Octavia's ring (because of course she said _yes_ ) while they sip on their beers. He hates that his sister is getting married. Raven hates marriage on principle.

"Me and wick are moving in together."

"My sincerest condolences."

"You're a dick," Clarke kicks in, leaning on his shoulder as she squeezes herself down in between them. "Congrats, Rave. When's the baby due?"

Raven sends her the deadliest look ever and Clarke just laughs. A part of his soul just died and it wasn't even directed at him and Clarke's _laughing_. Okay.

"I'm kidding. Seriously. Congrats."

Bellamy snorts, humourless as he plucks at the fabric on the couch. Something should suffer tonight. "I was his roommate for two years. Wick literally wakes up singing. On multiple occasions, he complained his face hurt from smiling too much. He draws designs of machines on top of _everything_ , especially if it isn't his stuff. He lost his voice because he talked non-stop for five hours one time. On tuesday's, his comic book club comes over and they have in depth discussions about _comics_."

Clarke opens her mouth, probably trying to protest just for the sake of protesting, or like, defend the underdog. It's kind of her thing.

Before she has the chance, Raven shrugs lazily, putting her bottle to her lips. "He's right. I'm going to kill him like two hours in."

Clarke sighs dramatically, slouching down in her seat and resting her hands on her stomach. Their knees brush and he pretends to be unaffected instead of ' _surprisingly betrayed by my own body affected_ '. "You're both hopeless."

"Your face's hopeless," he retorts, without even thinking about it. By now it just happens naturally, like a reflex. She says something, he responds cynically, she fires back accordingly-the cycle continues.

She kicks him in the shin with the heel of her foot, and mid-swallow, he coughs up half his beer in response. Then, she brightly smiles at him, like she thinks this is the funniest thing that's ever happened to her. The corners of his mouth turn up, but out of like, total pride (he can't let her win), he represses a grin.

She looks like she's about to continue their routine and fire back something relatively mean, when Octavia comes over and ushers her away to come take another look at her ring ' _in the right lighting_ ', sends him a dirty look and adds ' _and right aura_ ', like the rock morphed into a golden squirrel in the two seconds that passed since the last time they ogled the thing. Octavia looks at Raven like she wants her to tag along, almost longingly, but the tan woman just growls at her like a grumpy cat until she leaves.

"Clarke's totally your shamefuck, right?"

"My what?" He wonders, still slightly distraught as he watches Lincoln wrap his arm around his sister, pulling her into his chest. He knows the dude, like, handles flowers for a living and is like the nicest person ever, but. Fuck. He kind of hates Octavia for picking such a good one.

She leans forward, resting her arms on her thighs as she looks back at him over her shoulder, ponytail swinging over to the other. She has the decency to keep a low voice, but not to keep damn self-righteous cocked eyebrow down where it belongs. "The person you're compelled to bang but are totally ashamed to. Because she's like, beautiful and smart, completely out of your league, your little sister's friend and there's a nine out of ten chance you'll screw it up. Do I need to go on? You guys are like a damn romantic soap opera subplot."

Raven's like one of his best friends-they understand each other on a deeper level, cut from the same cloth, whatever cliché you want to use he guesses-even if he'd rather skin himself and roll around in salt instead of ever telling her that.

He stares at her stupid sweater, blinking like an idiot as he tries to buy himself some time to come up with a comeback. One sleeve is polka-dotted in black and white, the other consists of pink and blue stripes. It says POW! in the middle of her chest. Anything to not think about the fact that yes, Clarke is pretty, and her skin is soft, and one time he accidentally noted that she has a great butt.

"The _only_ thing I feel compelled to do is drink my entire secret stash of alcoholic beverages."

"It's okay. Kyle used to be mine." She doesn't look straight at him when she says it, eyes uncharacteristically fond. She only ever doesn't call him Wick when she's getting emotional, which is pretty much as emotional as she ever gets-calling people by their actual names. He raises his eyebrows and she rolls her eyes. "He's an engineer. I'm a mechanic. I didn't want to lose my rep."

"Clarke," he starts before realizing where they're located-the centre of hell-and pauses, collecting himself so he remembers how to talk in a lower voice. "Clarke and me-we're not compatible. Not like that. It wouldn't work."

He hasn't ever really let his mind go there, not completely. He and Clarke were always halfway ready to kill each other so he never really had the chance to consider taking her to bed instead of to war. It seems strange to start now.

They both ignore the fact the term ' _compatible_ ' was never in the description. She pats his shoulder sympathetically, skeptical look on her face. "Whatever you say, Bell. Whatever you say."

.

He's in the middle of a story about how many STD's he presumes Zeus contracted over the years and wives he ruled (which, okay, maybe wasn't a totally appropriate story for a bunch of sixteen year olds when what he should be probably talking about is the second world war) when he sees her head pop up the window of his classroom's door. She ducks back down when he spots her, like she's a child playing fucking hide and seek.

Maybe he was starting to imagine things. He distractedly turns back to his class, muttering a 'what the fuck' under his breath lowly before shaking his head and continuing his story, or more like rant. Whatever. He won the Ark's _'Least Likely Class To Fake Having To Go To The Bathroom During_ ' twice in a row (and there was that one year he received a ' _world's goodest teacher_ ' tie from one of his classes), he must be doing something right.

When his students start staring out of the window and whispering instead of listening to him, he figures he wasn't just imaging Clarke. He holds up a finger to his class, signaling he'll be right back, although half of them don't really seem to notice to occupied by the strange blonde lady practically pressing her nose against the glass.

"You wanna hear what kind of teen angst I just accidentally walked in on in the bathroom?" She greets him, beaming warmly.

He sighs, closing the door behind him. "Shoot." It's not like he has twenty-five children trying to eavesdrop while they wait for him to come back.

"Tiffany's parents won't let her go to the dance with Jake because he has a tattoo. He's also thirty and has two children. Her life is over."

"Oh God," he deadpans, face blank. "Did you suggest a counselor? Maybe a trip to an island without cellphone reception for three weeks?"

"Not that I don't enjoy hearing about your _wild_ adventures, but, _why_ are you here?"

"I'm bored, like. All the time. Being jobless sucks. Technically, Octavia is, too, but she's busy with school, and Lincoln. And because I'm such a good friend I can't keep emotionally blackmailing her with my leukemia."

"Cute." He purses his lips, crossing his arms over his chest as he leans back against the door.

"You're the only one I know that's as pathetic as me."

He makes a face that he's describing as the human equivalent of the sunglasses emoji-the one uncool nerds use to seem cool. "Hey. I _have_ friends."

She snorts, challenging look in her eyes. "Sure. The internet-trolls you yell at in your free time on history forums while your finger's stuck on the shift button don't count."

He feigns shock, adding a frown to make it Oscar worthy. "Let's see-that leaves Miller's dog Max. Oh, that old guy in the train that always creepily smiles at me. Annnnd, you."

"I've spend hours of my limited time doing useless shit. I hate-liked three of my exes' pictures, read every The Onion article since _augus_ t and realized I really lost it when I actually _enjoyed_ watching infomercials. I almost ordered a pocket hose. I don't even _have_ a garden to water."

"What broke you?"

"It grasped me that the only gasms I'll be having for a while are foodgasms, since I doubt I'll meet the love of my life while contained in a 15 square foot room." She thrusts a brown paper bag into his hands, makes a point of looking despaired and sad.

"You fishing for compliments, Griffin?" He opens the bag-there's a muffin and some cookies. More surprisingly, it smells _good_. He meets her eyes with a certain kind of skepticism he mastered over years of ' _I didn't make my homework because_ '. " _You_ made this?"

"No, I broke your oven and then bought you these as an apology." She smiles cheekily and honestly, he never really used that thing anyway. "Also, don't forget I have leukemia."

He sighs, but it's pretty meaningless one. "I thought you were above the whole using cancer as a bribe thing?"

"I'm allowed to milk this for- _at least_ until I'm in remission. Let me live."

Some of his students whoop when he walks back in-shoving the paper bag in his desk drawer-and continue even when he glares at them. He recognizes it's a lost cause when 'GET IT, MR. BLAKE' gets shouted through his classroom. When he turns back to look at the door Clarke waves at him through the glass, grinning all smug and better than him and _great_ , she totally heard that.

.

They have their annual christmas party a week earlier, since Clarke will be tied down in a hospital bed during the actual birth of Jesus. They usually all wear ugly christmas sweaters, get drunk and complain about their lives.

Only this year, Octavia hung mistletoe everywhere because she thinks she's oh-so funny. He feels like he's playing a live-action version of fucking minesweeper. Bellamy's already had Wick's tongue down his throat, _twice_ , and an awkward exchange of pecks on the lips with Raven. When he walks into the kitchen halfway through the night, he pauses to find himself under the same mistletoe as Murphy. They blink stupidly at each other for a moment before both mentally agreeing to turn their back to each other and get the hell away before anyone _sees_. He draws the line at fucking Murphy.

He's pretty sure Lincoln's _looking_ for mistletoe and Monty holds in his breath excitedly every time Miller makes a move to stand up, only to look like a sad puppy when it turns out he's just shifting in seat. It's pretty depressing when you don't have anyone you actually _want_ to kiss and everyone else does. His sweater's itchy and no one's complaining-they're all, _happy (_ which is fine, he just-misses the unadulterated, shameless complaining, it's good for his stress-levels _)_. Luckily, they didn't cut the 'get drunk' part, too.

On his way to get ' _so drunk he forgets his name_ ', the worst thing imaginable happens.

"You did this," he growls, because this is _un-fucking-believable_ , "This is on you."

Clarke is gasping for air, practically rolling over with tears in her eyes from laughing. He takes it back. He draws the line at _this_. He'll kiss Murphy's _dick_ if he needs to, but over his dead, decaying body he's kissing _her_.

"Okay, so buying twenty-seven maybe was a little dramatic," Octavia admits, but she's struggling to keep from laughing so he can't take her seriously.

"I'm not going to kiss you."

Octavia shrugs. "Yeah, this isn't Kentucky or a random episode of Games Of Thrones. I think we get a pass."

"Nuh-uh," Jasper cuts in, almost offended Octavia doesn't want to kiss _him_. He's going to fight him so hard later, when they're alone. "You made me kiss Miller's dog! You're _kissing_ Bellamy."

Their eyes meet in the middle-hoping she knows he hates her and everyone in this room-as Raven starts chanting 'smooch' over and over, and he's pretty fucking sure Clarke's peeing her pants.

Octavia leans forwards, grimacing, and pecks him on the lips before he can push her off, or like, jump out of the window. It's fast and short and he barely feels it, but it's still fucking weird. He feels like he needs ten showers with pure anti-septic.

Octavia runs into the kitchen to wash her mouth dramatically and he decides to wash down any trace of his sister with alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol.

Clarke claps him on the shoulder, wiping at the tears in the corner of her eyes with her free hand. She's wearing a worn-out sweater with a fruit cake, a running joke for years between her, Miller and Monty now, poking fun at their sexuality. Wick has kittens with santa hats, Raven a decorated robot, Jasper space aliens with striped candy canes. His has that, that troll- _Shrek_ -with christmas trees on it. "Incest: the true spirit of christmas."

He shakes his head, halting Lincoln as he passes him and grabbing his drink out of his hand. "Shut it, yeah. I never want to hear anything about this again."

"Ah, but history is important, Bellamy." Her eyes shine with amusement and he hates it when she uses his own words against him. "We must learn from it so it can provide valuable insight for our future. With that I mean yours and Octavia's, _obviously_."

He groans, legitimately considering stabbing himself with the tree topper Raven molded together out of sharp metal scraps. "Fine. You win. What do I have to do to make you forget this ever happened?"

" _I_ win? You are, you just-oh my god. This is fantastic." She runs a hand through her hair, like she can't quite believe it. "It's a christmas miracle!"

His sister comes back, still wiping at her mouth and is about to point out that Clarke stepped under the mistletoe with him, but he glares so darkly at her that she turns the other way. He's had enough fake pleasantries for the night.

.

"Hey Clarke," he tries out as he hovers in the doorway, like he's reserving the right to run away at any moment. There's only one person allowed in her room at the time, because of infections and bacteria and all that micro shit. All he knows is that it might kill her if they don't listen, so he listens.

"Hello?" She responds, giving him a funny look. "Who are you?"

He slightly panics, in that 'omg cancer affected her brain' way, but Octavia was in here like five minutes ago and she didn't say anything. Neither did her mom, who was in her like, every time no one else was.

She laughs, or more like cackles, and even if it's a little weak it's still Clarke. "Bellamy Eugene Blake-you should have seen the look on your face."

"My middle name isn't even Eugene," he retorts, lamely, as he finally closes the door behind him and drags himself over to the side of her bed. He promised himself to keep the eye-rolling to a minimum since she has like a lot of more shitty reasons to roll her eyes all the time, so he manages to withhold.

"Who cares, my memory is impeccable and that's what matters. Also, Octavia is an asshole and wouldn't tell me."

"Ha," he responds, resting his hands on the railing of her bed. As long as her middle-name was Guadalupe, he was safe (their mom was really into Octavia's father's roots post-birth euforia). "How's chemo?"

"Fine, for now." She offers, tight, closed mouth smile on her face and he has to bite down on the inside of his cheek to _not_ move his eyes upwards and convey his annoyance. She's so bad at lying he doesn't get how she convinces anyone else she's fine.

"How's it really?"

"Disgusting. I keep vomiting bile and I have not been to the bathroom in three days." Even with her pale skin, dark bags under her eyes and all-around tiredness on her face-she doesn't look the part. She runs a hand through her hair with a sigh, but her IV gets stuck. Her answer is to keep pulling until she either jerks a clump of hair out of her head, or yanks her IV out of her hand. He opts for helping her untangle it.

"Sorry. I keep forgetting I'm imprisoned."

He reaches for something in his back-pocket, taking out his old iPod that he disinfected like five times before going in here. Flatly, he explains, "Me and O made you a mix. There was a lot of yelling. Kanye's Stronger is on there like three times."

Her mouth stretches as she fingers the buttons on the side of the device, she's about to open her mouth to say something when someone knocks on her door. It's Abby.

He informs her he'll be right out before he turns back to Clarke, sending her a careful, almost shy grin before nodding towards the door. He's about to say goodbye when she covers his hand with hers.

"I keep saying this and it bruises my ego considerably more every time, but-thank you."

He sneaked in, like, twelve podcasts about oceanic mythological gods on there, followed by the entire soundtrack of the Little Mermaid. "Listen to it first. Then consider again if you want to thank me or not."

.

Week two of chemo is kind of hard on Clarke. The side-effects are starting to kick in and the hope of ' _I'm almost halfway there_ ' hasn't quite settled in yet. He notices, because, well. It's kind of hard not to.

"Just go away, Bellamy," she groans, on her side in the bed as she stares at the wall like she's not actually seeing it. He moves the chair to the side of the bed she's facing, blocking her view of the wall. "What's up, princess? Someone pissed in your cereal?"

"I haven't eaten solid food in a week, but thanks for reminding me." She chooses to stare at his hair, instead of looking him in the eye. He reaches out to touch her arm, but she flinches away.

"Clarke."

"Just leave me alone, please." She says, weak, and he notices her eyes are filling up.

"If that's really what you want." He tries, hoping to gage her reaction but she only responds by turning on her other side. He feels like a bad friend for leaving, but it's what she wants. Since making her own choices is really all she has left lying in that hospital bed, he can't take that from her, too.

.

The second time he comes by that week, she's asleep. He stays by her side for a while, trying to memorize how peaceful she looks when she sleeps for future purposes, like when he wants to strangle her for being stubborn.

She wakes up, hurling what little fluids was left inside of her. That it's on top of him is really just an afterthought. It's on him for rushing to her side within five seconds-really not _that_ casual.

A nurse named Jackson gets him some spare scrubs and when he reemerges she tries to whistle, but it turns into a cough about halfway in. He laughs, offering her some water before he sinks back into his chair, putting the glass down next to him.

"Well, now that I threw up on you our friendship has reached an entire new level of intimacy."

"I kind of want to reconsider the whole having a baby together thing. That was hot."

"I'd kiss you to seal the deal but I have mouth-sores."

"Why were you acting like a petulant child the other day?"

"Way to ruin a moment, Blake," she groans, throwing her head back against her pillow and crossing her arms over her chest.

He cocks an eyebrow, lips pursed as he gives her an expectant look.

She sighs, sitting back up as she wipes her hands on her pyjama pants. She holds them out for him to see-pale and trembling. She shakes them, cursing at herself under her breath before resting them back onto her thighs.

"I can't feel the tips of my fingers, let alone I can hold a pencil."

"Hand me your phone."

"Why? You want to document the demise of Clarke Griffin?"

"Just do it."

"You know how they always say teachers teach because they can't do shit? It's crap." Not only is he personally offended by that complete myth, it's just not true. In order to teach, you have to truly master a skill. Clarke totally has art down, so it's cool. He slides closer to her bed, tilting the phone so she can see over his shoulder as he uses his thumb to scroll down a page. "There's a bunch of losers on this site that need you to criticize their work and reality check them back into their mundane existence before they actually start thinking their art is _good_ and worthy of any praise, or God forbid, money."

Tentatively she agrees and it turns into him trash-talking every drawing before showing it to her. He's yping along on his freshly made 'CHECKurselfb4uWRECKurself' account as she offers actual critique, like _work on your shading,_ or, _do this not that while drawing noses_.

By the end of his visit she's looking rather satisfied, cheeks pink from excitement, and asks him to write down the password of his most iconic troll account to date. Mission succeeded.

.

"I have good and bad news."

"What's the good news?"

"You'll look hot in a bandana."

"What's the bad news?"

"I can't cut hair for shit."

She smiles and Bellamy thinks it's the Worst Fucking Thing. Besides like the cancer. It makes him feel all warm and creepy. He's not supposed to be crushing on his sister's friend who's about to lose all her hair because of chemotherapy. Ethically speaking there's like at least seven things wrong with that.

"Seriously. I tried to cut O's bangs once and she walked around in a woolen hat an entire summer."

She shoves the scissors into his hand, brows raised. "What's the worst thing that could happen? I'm going to lose it anyway."

He sends her another wary look, reaching out to take a wavy lock in between his fingers, "You sure? Or is this the chemo talking?"

She showed him the plucks of hair she found on her pillow, earlier. It kind of freaked him out to be honest. This was so _real_ , palpable-something that happened to the people in the movies he watched and the articles he read, not _Clarke_. He offered to call O, or Raven-an actual hairstylist, _anyone_ besides him really. She insisted on getting rid of it immediately.

"Bellamy," she states, putting both hands on his shoulders as she sends him an amused smile. "I'm going to pull the cancer card here and demand you cut my hair before my mom tries to save some of it for her scrapbooks."

He's always loved Clarke's hair. It was always soft and smelled like fresh cinnamon rolls. Long, blonde, wavy, reminding him of the sea and sunshine. He guesses it's just hair though. If it means she's getting better, if it means she's fighting-it'll grow back.

Raven buys her a pink wig as a joke and Monty knits her a hat. Murphy mentions she's on his list of ' _bald girls he'd do, right under Natalie Portman_ '-it's a dick thing to say, but Clarke loves it. It's just hair.

.

They're playing cards, and sucking at it, when he mistakenly mentions his mom. They'd been taking, but not really saying anything, when she says, laughing, "Octavia always proudly announces she's named after the first roman emperor Augustus' sister."

He's quiet for a while, because to this day, he always thought Octavia still hated him for it. All of it. For how he treated her when their mother got sick and he needed someone to blame.

"You gave her that name, right?" She asks, softly. She's not prying or overstepping any boundaries, not really, but a part of him shuts down anyway. He clenches his jaw, tightening his grip on his cards.

He forces it out. "Yeah, my mom-she, uhh. She let me name her." He still doesn't look at her, he can't. It feels too, too close. Even after all these years.

Her voice's soft, encouraging almost. "She's proud of it. You should be, too." She laughs, and it's nice. "She literally goes around telling the most insane, abundant stories about Augustus and Octavia's adventures that I'm ninety-nine percent sure are almost all fake."

"My mom-she was depressed, I guess, after giving birth to Octavia." Just like that, just because of Clarke, the words come out. "I resented O for it for a long time, I-I was young, but I was horrible to her. I thought my life ended the day she was born. I hate my mother for that, for making me feel that way about my own sister. Hated. I don't-I don't know."

"Your mother was ill. She didn't know what she was doing." She puts her cards down on her blanket, making sure he knows he has her full attention. It _is_ a little silly to have a serious conversation when she's wearing a hat shaped like a panda.

He kind of wants to _fucking_ laugh. "I guess I should be thankful she waited until I turned eighteen. I don't know, _what_ -what I would've done if I had lost her." It's been over a decade, and it's still just as painful.

Clarke reaches out to touch his shoulder, it lands a little close to his neck, but he ignores that. He stares at her IV as she assures him, "Octavia adores you, you know? She just doesn't want _you_ to know."

The corners of his lip turn upwards, just a little. He doesn't want to think about it anymore. "What about you? Your mom seems normal, yet you cringe every time she says your name."

She snorts, wiping her palms on her pyjama pants and picking her cards back up. "Normal."

Okay. She was rich, a little pretentious, maybe somewhat overprotective-but she was Clarke's _mother_.

She licks her lips, before exhaling loudly. "My dad-because of his job, his lungs, he developed asbestosis. It was bad." She pauses, biting down on her bottom lip and he kind of wants to reach out and touch her, show her his support, but he doesn't. "There was a clinical trial but my mom, she didn't want to tell him, didn't want to get his hopes up, or mine. He died shortly after I found out, and well-I always believed she did it for selfish reasons."

"I'm sorry," he says, because he doesn't feel like lying about how her mother was trying to protect her or some shit. Abby did a shitty thing. She should pay for it.

She offers him roll of her eyes. "Look at us and our sad parental issues."

"It _is_ slightly problematic that we haven't dealt with it. Where's our blue hair, excessively twisted sexual fantasies and promiscuous behaviour with a credit-card?"

"At some point of my life, I've met each of the three criteria."

"Really?" He practically _snorts_. Clarke Griffin, _princess_ , has excessively twisted sexual fantasies. Sure. "Name a kink."

She smirks, like she knows she has him right where she wants him. "Older men."

They're treading dangerous territory, but he feels like he can handle it. He's mature. He can casually joke around with a friend. "Unfortunately for you, troubled blonde artist with mommy issues isn't one of mine, Griffin."

She flips a card in her hand over, landing back on top of the score, laughing at the grimace on his face. "We'll see about that."

.

to: b-blake .com

subject: _Mr. Blake, what are you wearing?_

Little birdy told me you got yourself sick. Bailing on me. Nice.

P.S. it's kind of shady you don't have an embarrassing email address like the rest of us humans.

to: clarkyclarknthefunkybunch

subject: _i hate you_

just a cold but you're mom promised scary, violent things if i came within a five mile radius of the hospital. she has quite the vocabulary.

thanks by the way. i opened this while the projector was still on. how are my kids ever supposed to believe i'm a professional, serious, normal person that's not hooking up with his students?

i was of age when the internet was popularized for common use, clarkyclarknthefunkybunch

to: b-blake .com

subject: _RE: i hate you_

Imagine being brought up by her :) I love her, but she's smothering me. Yesterday, she offered to comb Raven's wig for me? Does she expect me to wear it? Has she lost her mind? I'm scared.

Did they ever buy that lie to begin with? You read history encyclopedias for fun, and then send the author anonymous hate-mail to correct their inconsistencies. Normal has never been an option.

Oh, right, I forgot you're old.

to: clarkyclarknthefunkybunch

subject: _RE: RE: i hate you_

sorry, forgot to reply after you DRAGGED me to hell and back.

to: b-blake .com

subject: _RE: RE: RE: i hate you_

IT'S BEEN TWO DAYS

to: clarkyclarknthefunkybunch

subject: _RE: RE: RE: RE: i hate you_

aw, you miss me? how cute, princess.

sorry í'm so old i only check my emails on a computer. maybe try written message next. possibly send a pigeon. better yet, communicate to me via smoke signals. or just blow a horn!

to: b-blake .com

subject: _RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: i hate you_

Message is empty.

 **attachment (1):** _cgriff__

It's a picture of her, flipping him the bird. He's glad to see she's feeling better.

.

"I come bearing presents," he informs her, arms behind his back. It's been a solid week since he last saw her. The doctor gave him the clear after five days, but he added another two, just to be sure.

"Oh my god. Please tell me it's chocolate. I can't wait to stuff my face with that when I get my appetite back and learn to repress my gag reflex."

"Gross. No, even better," he smirks, revealing the dvds in his hands: _A Day In The Life Of A Dictator_ and _Secrets Of The Dead: Lost Ships Of Rome_. He kind of can't wait to watch them with Clarke and add commentary when needed, which is, now that he thinks of it, kind of pathetic. When did he become this person?

"Bell, it's not a present if it's only for your own selfish enjoyment."

"You love my history documentaries and you know it."

He rolls the TV closer to her bed and holds up both of them. Secretly she likes them-he knows, because she forgot to log out of her netflix account on his laptop once and she'd been watching some of his recommendations. He just won't rub it in because she might start protesting out of principle and he'll be forced to watch another brainless action movie. She purses her lips, pointing at the first one as she gives in.

"Maybe it'll kill some malicious braincells."

"Good choice. Nice commentary. Beautiful visuals. Vaguely reminds me of Murphy."

She shoves her IV pole further away from her bed, sliding over and patting the empty spot next to her. He slides in next to her and decides not to comment on it when she rests her head on the junction between his shoulder and chest. This isn't- _them_ , but. He kind of missed her, too.

She falls asleep about twenty minutes in. He finishes watching the three hour documentary with Clarke practically on top of him. It's not he minds, it's just that if anyone would walk in right now they might make the very wrong assumption that him and Clarke… have something. They do, but not like that.

When he manages to carefully detach her body from his and slip out of the room quietly, her mother catches him by the sleeve. The first second she's looking at him he's inwardly panicking. He's never been any mother's first choice.

"Thank you... for taking care of her. Our history it's-complicated. Her father…" She reads his face before shaking her head, pursing her lips. He calms down considerably. She's not threatening him with castration just yet. "She's… Happy. I appreciate that."

"Yeah," he rubs the back of his neck awkwardly, wondering if she knew something he didn't, or worse, witnessed what went on in that room like two seconds ago. "I don't know if that's all me though. She has a pretty great support system. Her friends and, and you."

He winces a little at the look on her face, clearing his throat. In hindsight, he maybe should've mentioned her mother first when talking to said mother. He thinks he might be allergic to rich people and it's making his brain fuzzy and his body buzz with nervous energy.

It's true. Her mother cares, even if Clarke seems to think it's for the wrong reasons. Octavia visits everyday with war stories from work that he's pretty sure are lies most of the time but Clarke loves them. Raven comes at least every other day and voluntarily eats a lot of junk food in her presence so the blonde can live vicariously through her. She's technically not allowed to see this many people, because, eww germs, but they find ways. Lincoln sends her self-made comics about Griffin Girl, a micro female superhero fighting bad cells. Murphy plays horrible songs on his guitar for her via skype and Monty and Jasper wear out her fingers in a never-ending group-chat. He thinks Miller's in there, too, but he only comments with memes. Wells is still in school on the other side of the country but they spend like half an hour a day on the phone. Wick sends her plastified handwritten letters that are easy to disinfect and always leave her laughing.

She's got a _great_ support system, and it's every bit deserved because she'd do the same for any of them. He's just-one of many. Mundane, sometimes even below average, compared to most of them. He doesn't get to take any credit for Clarke's strength.

"Mhm," she nods stiffly, tightlipped as she lets go off his sleeve.

Well, she didn't _kill_ him.

.

"What are we doing here exactly?"

He gives her a funny look. "We're at a bar."

"I can see that chemo hasn't made me blind. Yet."

"Ha-ha," he says, dryly. "No cancer jokes in public remember?"

"No, I don't. Oh my god. Who are you? What are we doing here? HELP, S-" He covers her mouth with his hand to shut her up-hopefully just in time that no one thinks he's like, abducting her-until she licks it. He scrunches up his nose, sending her a look as he wipes it on his jeans. "What are you, five?"

She bats her eyelashes at him, "Seven and a half. Why are we here?"

"We're here to get you laid."

She coughs a little, putting her drink down. "We're? As in we? How are you going to assist exactly?"

"I'll completely objectify every person in here and judge their physical appearance here with you-"

"Seems like you got it all figured out."

"-then I'll proceed to watch you flirt them up from a safe distance. If they're creepy, I'll pretend to be your dad."

"My dad, huh?"

"Yeah, I feel like if I say boyfriend you'll think I'm like, secretly in love with you and this was all a clever ploy to make you realize no one compares to me. It's the perfect opportunity to fake-kiss you and make you aware of your soul crushing feelings for me."

"Soul crushing," she repeats, flatly.

"Now-who to shamelessly objectify first?" He looks around the room, drinking in the crowd. "I don't mean to be a dick-"

"You're one anyway." She smiles, all sweet and innocent.

He continues with a pointed look, " _I think_ we should go for a chick. I mean they'll be much more into the whole tragic cancer story than guys. Guys are stupid."

"Trueeeeee," she agrees, clinking her glass against his as she points her drink at a tall, dark-haired girl. "I can only see her back, but I like what I'm seeing."

She wiggles her eyebrows at him and he pinches the bridge of his nose. "You're the worst."

She slaps his butt, sending him a smirk over her shoulder as she dances her way to the crowd and over to the girl. The girl does have a nice ass, he'll give her that.

Clarke reemerges about eight minutes later (he wasn't counting, just really- _really_ bored. Being a wingman wasn't as awesome as he imagined). She takes his glass from him and downs it in one gulp.

"That bad?"

"She reminded me of Lexa."

"Dark make-up and a bad attitude?"

"No. Shut up." She signals the bartender to give her another drink as she turns on her stool and rests her arms back on the bar. It's kind of a funny sight really. She's dressed in dark jeans, a dark red camisole and sporting a bright pink knitted hat spelling ' _monday_ ' (it's friday) courtesy of Monty. She reminds him of that grumpy cat Octavia keeps spam e-mailing him. "She was nice. I just don't want to go through that kind of power struggle again."

Break-ups suck. He totally understands that, nodding as he takes a sip of his beer. He understands it to a certain degree, at least. What he doesn't get is why she keeps making up excuses the rest of the night.

The second girl looks like Raven and that's bad because " _it would be kind of hot but then I'd have to admit I think Raven's hot and I'd rather die_ ". The third girl comes up to her, and she's cute and funny but somehow reminds Clarke of a " _stale cookie slash wet blanket_ ". She finds a guy after that, sends him away after three seconds, then only offers him the explanation, " _he said succulent_ " which leaves him wondering for the rest of the night why/how that guy used the word succulent in a three-sentence-conversation to begin with.

"Clarke, what's up? We're here to get you laid, not find you a suitable wedding partner."

It's not like _he_ accepted any of the advances made at him, but he was wingmanning tonight. It be rude and/or selfish to go home with someone, especially if Clarke insisted on being so picky and ending up alone. (And, well. He finds a tiny part of himself comparing all of them to Clarke, which is wrong, and possibly like the most horrific thing that's ever happened to him.)

Don't get him wrong-he loves showing her the great wonders of TV on demand but, she got out of the hospital like seven weeks ago and it's time to start enjoying a social life again, right? Something occurs to him and he clears his throat. Shifting uncomfortably in his seat, with a low voice he offers, "Are you self-conscious about how you look?"

"Hell no. I am rocking the scarred newborn look," she smirks, before it fades a little at the skeptical look on his face. "I appreciate what you're trying to do, Bell, but I just don't think I'm in the mood."

He sighs, playing with the label on his beer. He knocks his shoulder into hers softly, "Looks like you're going home with me. Netflix and chill it is."

She laughs loudly, squeezing his forearm, as she covers her face with her free hand, "Oh m-my god, you're so- _so_ old." He gives her a confused look, but she only grins so he just blames it on the buzz.

(Later, Octavia informs him ' _netflix and chill_ ' does not mean what he thinks it means and he realizes he prepositioned his completely platonic friend. He fucking _hates_ kids and their monopolization of perfectly fine phrases, man.)

.

Clarke insists she doesn't want a cake, which is why Octavia bakes her one. He luckily finds out on time and is able to replace it with one he bought, that's actually, you know-edible. He can't blame Octavia for any of it really-including trying to poison their already sick friend-her only example growing up was _him_.

They eat the cake, childish party hats ajar on their head while watching 'sixteen candles', and get a little buzzed. Usually, he wasn't invited to this part of their friendship, mostly because he ended up arguing with Clarke on almost every occasions and Octavia was 'too cool' to hang with her brother _all_ the time. O's passed out on the couch on a sugar high by the time they get to the end of the movie, and he (completely unromantically) points out she hasn't _actually_ blown out any candles (he doesn't mean on top of a table before he kisses her). They find a half eaten hello kitty cupcake in the fridge and he plants a tealight on top of it.

"This is _the_ most pathetic little cake I've ever seen."

"Or," he suggests, grinning, "it's the best fucking cake ever."

Clarke being Clarke, she likes to share.

"Make a wish," she nudges him with elbow, gaze transfixed on the cupcake like she can challenge-stare it's secrets to wish fulfilment out of it. He likes that about her, that she still believes in the _good_ of the world.

He knows he should look away from her if he doesn't want to pass into creepy territory, but he doesn't. "I wouldn't even know what to wish for."

Clarke shrugs, unimpressed. "Money. Fame. Someone who'll put up with your bullshit. If you want to switch it up for once, anything less selfish."

He chuckles, staring at the flickering flame as he tries to imagine a girl, any girl, trying to deal with his hectic life. Between his job, his students, the academic research he's been doing on the side, his friends, his sister, Clarke _,_ trying to remain clean and fed-he barely has time to think. "Like I have time for a girlfriend."

For a second, she looks conflicted, a little sad even maybe. He rolls his eyes, blowing out the flame. He doesn't need her pity. He's fine. Happy. "There."

"I wished for happiness for all my friends."

He smiles, fond. "I don't think that's how it works, princess. You're not supposed to tell me."

"Or maybe," she pokes his chest with her finger, feigning a gasp, "wishes aren't actually... _real_."

They end up on the floor, leaning against the couch and sipping on the expensive tequila they got her as a present. "Yolo," she reminds him, cheeks flushed from the wine from earlier. She looks almost adorable, if he ever used that word that is.

"Sooooo. Twenty- _six_."

"It's such an underwhelming age, really. Nothing happens when you're twenty- _six_." She turns her head to look at him, smiling lazily, eyes half-lidded. "What did you do on your twenty-sixth birthday, oh wise man?"

"I'm not sure at my ripe old age the birthdays just all glaze over into one big blur." She elbows him, and he's at that point of drunkenness that she could break his ribs and he would not know until the next morning. He squints his eyes at her, trying to actually think about, since it's her birthday and all. "I think me and Murphy got kicked out of a bar and Miller stayed and hooked up with some guy."

She narrows her eyes. "Nathan. That _snitch_."

"He was pretty hot though, so good for him."

She hands him the bottle (shoves it at him until he takes it), since they've now just switched to being complete savages. "What about _you_?"

"If you're wondering if me and Murphy did anything, well. If I tell you, I'd have to kill you."

"You... and, _John_ ," she checks, skeptical, almost suspicious.

He shrugs, smirking as he puts the bottle to his lips. He hopes she's drunk enough to forget this and not start a rumour mill in the morning that will haunt him for the rest of his life.

"You never like to talk about yourself, do you?" She's laughing, but he knows his ears are red from embarrassment and now that's he's more than a little drunk, there's an eighty percent chance he'll say something stupid.

"I don't know. I guess I don't."

"It's okay." She pats his thigh, tucking her free hand underneath her cheek as she blinks at him. "I understand. You dedicate your life to taking care of other people, you're the… certified squad mom. No time to be _just_ Bellamy."

A rush of affection surges up in him. He knows he's staring at her collarbone, at the flushed skin covering it, but he doesn't dare look up. He might-do something. He's supposed to be drunk, but he feels as clear-headed as ever and his mind. It goes _there_ , for just a second.

"Bellamy," she says, corners of her lips turned up, like she's just trying it out for the heck of it. He tries making eye-contact again, when he feels he has himself under control.

Then, lightly amused, " _Clarke_."

"I know something funny we can do."

They end up taking a picture-the two of them, laughing, with a drooling Octavia on the background, party hat perched on her cheek, piece of cake stuck to the corner of her mouth-that Clarke posts on Facebook and labels with ' _when you party this hard, natural selection runs it's course. If you never paid attention during Biology, that roughly translates to: Octavia is weak and we're awesome_ '.

"It's kind of unfair how good she still looks."

"It's the Blake genes."

(For his birthday, she gets him a hello kitty cupcake, cheap tequila and a candy cane. The accompanying note thanks him for ' _being their squad mom and keeping us all in check. P.S. candy CANE. get it? because you're old_ '.)

.

It's saturday so he has nothing to do but grade, and Clarke kind of triumphs grading a bunch of high school papers by at least three percent. Since her meds are making it so she can't climb stairs without having to rest for two hours, and her entire body is sore and painful, they're on a mission to watch and harshly judge every cancer movie ever.

After having a passionate discussion on having a child just for the sake of saving another child and missing the end of ' _my sister's keeper_ ' in the process (he wouldn't mind suffering if it meant saving Octavia), they've reached a deep abyss called Nicholas Sparks movies.

"I wish I looked as hot half dead as Mandy Moore does."

He huffs, not bothering to look at her as he watches Mandy confess she's sick to the dude she's flirtatious with. "You look fine."

She takes out her phone, pointing it at him, "Wait-can you repeat that? I need to get this on camera." She laughs, and it's cute, as he pushes her hand down, waving her off as he focuses on the movie and tries to forget the thought that Clarke Griffin is cute ever crossed his mind.

"Isn't asking someone not to fall in love with you is kind of arrogant anyway," he comments as he watches the girl stalk off, slouching further into his seat as Clarke throws her fluffy socks clad feet into his lap. He can't believe he's letting his emotions get influenced by a _movie_.

"I would've told you that if I didn't know you've been in love with me ever since we met."

"Totally. It's not like I thought you were a stuck-up, privileged, rich girl."

"And it's not like I thought you were an entitled, arrogant dick."

"Touché."

Halfway through the final credits of ' _the fault in our stars_ ', she sits up indian style, slapping the side of his thigh with her hand. He kind of thought she was asleep.

She presses her fingers together in front of her face, shaping them like a triangle. "No, but listen to this-did he have to die?"

"Would their story have been as romantic if it hadn't been so tragic? I don't think Romeo and Juliet would've been so popular without all the death."

She looks at him like he just kicked a kitten, or all hope in the world was lost. "Come on, that's not fair. Their love was kinda epic, admit it."

"No. If they had both lived, they would've grown up and grown apart, and they would've broken up and it would've been messy and not romantic so he killed one off and made millions off of teenage girl tears."

She leans her head against his shoulder, muling it over in silence for a moment until she suddenly punches him in the arm, hard.

"What was that for? Do you have chemo brain? Anger issues?"

"For the sake of both our sanities, let's pretend it's chemo brain. I just want you to promise you better not pull an Augustus and bail before I have the chance to."

"I'm older, I'm _supposed to_ die before you. It's like, evolution. But, if you think I'm hiding a secret tumor, then no. Promise." She shifts her head so she has a better view of his face, like she's reading him to see if he's serious.

It feels like a strangely personal and intimate thing to admit and he doesn't know why he feels so weird about it. It might be the whole intense looking-at-each-other-like-you're-the-best-goddamn-thing-that's-ever-happened-to-me thing. _Might_.

Jasper comes over and makes them watch ' _a walk to remember_ ', again, and they pretend like they didn't just have a stare contest five seconds prior before his entrance, _so what_ he yells out 'SHE DIES!' halfway through the movie. He's not bitter and severely repressing stuff.

.

"Bell."

"O."

He pauses mid coffee-making to look at her over his shoulder. She's leaning against the door-opening with a judgemental look on her face, her cardigan slipping down her shoulder. He pretends like he doesn't know why.

"I get that you're friends with Clarke now, but she's _in your bed_ , Bellamy. Why is she in your bed?"

He shrugs lazily, "She has nightmares." She does, and neither of them asked or suggested they'd share a bed-but it just happened. It wasn't like they were spooning or holding hands or something else that lame, she just... Wanted to feel safe, surrounded. They're _adults_ , he's thirty-one; he can share a bed with anyone he damn well wants to. Keep it platonic, too. There was no fucking way he was going to sleep on the couch, or the floor, he'd die of back pain in the morning.

She sighs, and he hears her footsteps approach before she halts besides him. Octavia hesitates before putting her hand on his back, "Bell-be careful, okay?"

He knows _why_ she's saying it, but he'd rather shove that possibility down as far as possible and deny the hell out of it. So he smirks, turns it into a joke, keeps it light and breezy, "When did you become the parent?"

"I'm not. I just… I worry about you." He doesn't say anything so she continues, since she was never good at shutting up, "I love Clarke and I know you two have gotten close but you spend almost _all_ your time with her-"

"So what? _Fuck_ , O." He runs a hand through his hair, turning around and leaning back against the counter. He snaps, "She has cancer. I'm not really in a position to tell her I'm busy with pointless shit that doesn't matter when she could die any moment."

She sends him an annoyed look, and in hindsight, sports the whole 'bomb about to explode' vibe. "You have a life, too. It's not healthy to-"

" _Die_? As in not breathing. Clarke could die. You do get that, right?"

"I do, Bell. I do," she exclaims, offering him a tight, somewhat sympathetic smile even though he can feel the tension in the room rising by the second, "But I also don't want you to give her false hope."

For the first time it occurs to him she might not be warning him about Clarke, but for Clarke.

He doesn't speak to her for three weeks. The longest they've ever gone without any sort of contact. He's mad she thinks he'd even _consider_ hurting Clarke and she's mad he won't take her concerns seriously, or something else that's equally as lame.

Clarke keeps asking about what they even fought about to begin with, but the Blakes are fiercely loyal, even when they're being stubborn idiots.

"When are you going to pull your head out of your ass and call your sister instead of asking me to give you hourly updates?"

He scoffs, and kinda loses it for a second there, "How about she pulls her head out of _her_ ass and _you_ just shut up and do what I ask?"

"Whoawhoawhoawhoa- _wow_. Excuse you, Hitler." She sits up, coughing a little and he unconsciously reaches out to pat her back. She shoots him a look and he rolls his eyes, snatching her phone from her as he reads Octavia's text. Clarke shakes her head. "You're both being so freaking childish."

He ignores her, grunting at her phone instead. "I can't believe she went to Denny's without me, she knows I love those damn pancakes."

Clarke snorts and he narrows his eyes at her, his gaze softens as he realizes the idiocy of what he just said. "Okay. So. Retrospectively, I see your point."

.

"I'm-"

" _Yes_?"

"I'm not doing it if you're going to look so fucking smug about it."

"I'm allowed to be smug, Bellamy. You _missed_ our engagement party."

"If I may interrupt-" Clark cuts in, two glares directed at her, quickly adding, "he will never admit this, but that anonymous honeymoon donation was all his and Lincoln was on to it." She directs her following words to Bellamy. "Octavia cried a little when she received it."

" _Clarke_ ," both of the Blakes snap at the same time and she holds up her hands in defense.

"I am… ssss," he pauses to sigh, quietly adding, "sorry." He clenches his jaw, unclenches it and says, "For being an asshole about…" He eyes Clarke. "what you said."

Octavia's gaze softens as she throws her arms around her brother's shoulders, and he's about to hug her back when she speaks, "I'm also sorry you're such an asshole."

Clarke clears her throat and the two of them exchange a look he can't make out. Octavia looks incredibly annoyed as she monotonously tells him that, "I'm sorry, too." He raises his eyebrows and she exhales loudly, groaning. "For implying… _stuff_. I know you're a good person."

He lifts her off the floor, pressing a loud kiss on her cheek. She starts wiping at her face as soon as he puts her down. "Gross, Bell. I just showered."

"Gross, Bell. I just showered," he repeats, flatly, lamely. She smirks though, and shoves his shoulder. He missed his sister, but he also realized she's no longer his entire world. She has her own world, her own family and that's okay.

He looks at Clarke and she's trying to hide she's grinning, and _fuck_ , his chest gets all tight and warm whenever he looks at her.

He thinks… He thinks Clarke has kind of become his best friend, anyway.

.

"I might need a bone marrow transplant."

"I love it when you talk dirty to me," he remarks impassively as he offers her half of his burger. She accepts gratefully, even though she's already had two. She had to miss them for a while.

(For a long time, he could feel her bones where used to be soft skin, so he'd invest half of his paycheck in burgers if she'd want him to.)

"That, or another round of chemo."

"But you just got your hair back," he pouts, running a hand over the side of her head while she sends him a cynical look. It's in between a pixie cut and a really short bob, which would be an awkward length for most people, but she just rolls with it. Kind of like when that chick from the hunger games cut her hair and everyone lost it.

She slaps his hand away, lips pursed. "Yeah, that definitely weighs very heavily in my decision making process."

"Nah, it's just hair. I'll get over it."

"Thank God you're such a great, noble person," she retorts sarcastically, wiping her hands on a napkin. She looks almost ethereal in the neon lights illuminating his car.

He starts the vehicle, backing out of his parking spot. "Your place or mine?" It's more of a rhetorical question than anything. She's been mostly staying at his place for the last few months, switching between his room and Octavia's. It's mostly his, since he lost the right to veto Lincoln out of the apartment. (They're getting married. There's no ethical objections left, unfortunately.)

She surprises him, though, looking out of the window as she answers, "Mine."

He decides not to ask _why_ and instead focuses on the road in front of him, because maybe she just wants to be alone, to think over her options _._ But, she asks him to come inside and he still agrees, because he's been in her apartment before and it's a nice fucking apartment-and maybe she wants to talk it over some more, it's not _strange_. The odd part is when she stops in front of her door by grabbing his wrist, directing her gaze at the floor. He kind of stares at the door dumbly for a second, wondering why she isn't opening it.

"We can't keep turning around this."

"What?" He blurts out, genuinely confused as he frowns at her.

"I mean us." She looks up, right at him as she motions in between them. "For a while I waited for you to make a move, but you _never_ did, so I thought I was just-" she pauses, squeezing her eyes shut, like she's trying to remember something. "I don't know, making stuff up." She shakes her head at herself and he hates this, he hates that he made her doubt herself, doubt him. "But _shit_ , Bellamy, sometimes you look at me like-" she cuts herself off, running a hand through her hair, looking like she's either about to cry or scream at him and he loves her, he loves her, he loves her.

He opens his mouth, closes it again. He tightens his jaw, unwrapping her fingers from his wrist and squeezing them instead. "Clarke, we can't. It's-" It's what? He doesn't even know where to start, or what he's even supposed to say to begin with.

Has he thought about it besides the occasional dream he has no control over and the weird, tight feeling in his chest when he looks at her sometimes and thinks she's the fucking greatest thing that's ever happened to him? No. Have they woken up in compromising situations? Have strangers in public assumed they were together on multiple occasions? Do they act like a couple without doing the romantic stuff? Yes.

She's Clarke and he's Bellamy. He hasn't been able to imagine a world without her by his side since they've been friends, but. Not even in his wildest dreams had he hoped for something more, ever.

"A risk?" She fills in for him, and it is. They could screw it up, screw their friendship up, he could screw her up, and Clarke, _God_ , she could-horrible things could happen, and he doesn't think he's strong enough to live through any of it without her.

"I don't want to live just to survive," she steps closer to him as she intertwines their fingers, "I- _we_ deserve more than that."

He tugs on her hand softly, and she falls into his chest as he surges down to connect their lips, because his brain's like, not even functioning right now. He knows it dumb, and probably the biggest mistake of his life, but it's like his muscles are operating on their own.

He lets go of her hand so she can open the door and he can place his hands on her face. It's a little clumsy, but there's not a single cell in his body that's considering pulling away from her. Hell, they'd gone this far-no stopping now.

They stumble inside, her hands sliding up his chest to his shoulders to steady herself before she shoves him back against a wall. Clarke-weak? Never.

He groans into her mouth as her nails raked his scalp, but he pulls away, for just a second, and then tries again, "Wait-did the doctor, you know, say it was okay?"

She doesn't open her eyes, but the annoyance on her scrunched up face is clear, "Fuck, please just- _shut_ up, okay?"

Somehow they make it into her room and she sits down on her bed, like eighty percent of his body wants to ask her if she's okay but then he moves forward instead, noting the way her knees open to allow him closer. He kneels down, hands grazing her thighs before finding the hem of her shirt. He ducks his head, bending down to press a kiss to her neck.

She smiles, leaning forward to peck his lips before her hands finds his, quietly urging him on as he helps her pull her shirt over her head. She urges him closer, on top of her as they fall back onto the bed. Her knees lock around his hips and he groans against her neck, "You're fucking killing me here, Clarke."

She laughs into his mouth, her hands moving from his chest to clutch at the back of his neck. His hands move up her stomach to her breasts-and fuck, Clarke has like, the greatest breasts ever-as hers slide under his shirt, pressing against his spine, urging him even closer.

He continues his mission from before which basically came down to kissing, tasting every inch of Clarke's soft skin. He moves his lips from the corner of her mouth and along her jaw, down her neck, pulling away a little as he notices the scar on her collarbone.

"It's from the chest port," she breathes, eyes closed as he rubs his thumb over it softly, before placing his lips on it. She's so strong and beautiful and he can't quite grasp the fact that he's allowed to touch her like this. She opens her eyes, like she's surprised, then she pulls his face back up, mouth pressing against his with a certain insistence, and it faintly reminds him of their arguments.

She unhooks her bra and throws it down somewhere on the floor, shimmying out of her jeans as he tries to lose every remaining piece of clothing on his own body. Her fingers trail down his chest, contrasting starkly against his tan skin, when he's still fumbling with the button on his jeans. It's not like he's sweating and trembling nervously, but he's a fucking wreck right in this moment, okay. This is _Clarke_. His skin is literally burning wherever she touched him.

He's forced to exhale loudly to try and collect any clear thought he has left in his head, like, for example, how to unbutton your jeans. She helps him-unbutton his jeans, not with the whole clear thought thing.

"I'm fine," she presses, like there's something wrong with _her_. He closes his eyes, cursing himself out internally. He's having war flashbacks to his first time, even though he's had plenty experience after that. It's just-it's different with her. "Fuck. It's not-it's not you. I'm like, freaking out."

She leans up, kissing him softly-which was drastically different from the fast, hot kisses from before. It helps him calm down a little, realizing this isn't just sex that'll ruin his life-this is sex _and_ so much more, that granted, will probably still ruin his life.

He's less nervous and more eager this time, eager to touch as much of her skin as possible as they travel up her sides towards her breasts, making her gasp into his mouth as their kiss deepens.

When they finish, and caught their breath, she half props herself up one elbow, the other lazily draped across his chest. She licks her lips, noting, "I want you to know I usually don't do this on the first date."

"I do, like all the time," he mentions casually, one arm behind his head as he looks at her. She scoffs, slapping him across the stomach, teasingly, but still, _hard_. "You're such a slut."

He ignores her blatant insult, continuing his earlier trail of thought as he takes her hand with his free hand, playing with her fingers. "-and I think this technically counts as our like, thousandth date."

"Ha, so you _were_ into me before."

He looks away from their hands to shoot her an incredulous look. "You weren't sure yet?"

"I was," she smirks, pressing a kiss to his pec, "Just wanted to hear you say the words."

He rolls onto his side, slinging one arm over her waist as he pulls her into his warmth. "I like you," he murmurs against her lips, then kisses her. He pretends he's thinking it over, before not being able contain his smirk any longer, "Maybe a little bit more than just like."

"I like you, too. Maybe a little bit more than just like," she admits, thoughtful expression on her face as she studies him, and for good measure she adds, "asshole."

.

He's not around when it happens. They're having karaoke night at Raven and Wick's new place and he refuses to be a part of it-he'd sacrifice a lot for his friends but every man has his limits. Instead, he sends them a cactus as a housewarming gift and excuses himself from the event. Between his job and Clarke and his friends and Octavia he really hasn't had a night to himself in a while anyway, so he doesn't mind.

He's halfway through his book when he gets a call from Monty. He debates picking up. Nobody actually ever uses the actual call function on their phone unless they're a) drunk b) old. Plus, him and Monty usually communicate through Miller.

He can hear the sound of sirens and a rowdy crowd in the background. Monty tries to remain calm but his voice trembles a little, as he stutters his way through an explanation, "Clarke, she-I don't know what, what happened, we-we called an ambulance and they-they took her but-"

"I'm on my way."

The whole ride there is kind of a blur, and he's surprised he gets there in once piece. He keeps thinking it over, if there were any signs, if he should've noticed something. She was a little feverish, but she wrote it off as a side-effect of the meds she was still taking and he took her word for it.

Raven is the only one there, having driven with Clarke in the ambulance. She fills him in, uses a lot of words like unconscious, infections, sepsis, shock-he can't make sense of it.

"She was fine," he interrupts her mid-sentence, running a hand over his head in disbelief, "When she left-she was fine."

"I know, Bell. She just-collapsed." She squeezes his arm sympathetically, and he just now notices all the blood on her shirt, dried up on her hands. "I think she just got really well at hiding her pain."

He's trying to remain calm, trying not to overreact but it's like his brain is shortcircuiting, stuck on an image of Clarke, faltering on how he wasn't by her side when- "Can we see her?"

Her lips thin. "They're running some tests right now. One doctor told me she might need surgery, too. I called Abby, she taking the first flight here."

He nods as he sinks into a chair in the waiting room, Raven slouching down beside him. "She'll be all right," she promises, taking his hand in her lap.

The others trinkle in one by one, and a few nurses give them small updates on when the doctor will come see them. Octavia comes in and all it takes is one exchange of looks before she slides her arms around him, squeezing tightly. "She has to be okay, Bell. She has to."

Doctor Kane comes out after what seems like an eternity. "She had an internal infection, probably caused by some sort of virus. Normally the body's white blood cells fight the virus, but her count was once again abnormally low." _Fuck_. The cancer-it's back.

"The undetected infection caused the sepsis, and endangered most of her vitals. Her blood pressure is a little low, which is probably why she fainted. We took a look at the place of impact on her head and it looks fine for now but we'll have to monitor her brain activity for the next hours to be sure." He sighs, like he has a million different things to do and he can't wait to cross ' _inform patient's friends about her status and remind them I'm a douche_ ' off of his list. "However, when she arrived she had an increased breathing rate and we had to vent her to help her breath. A vent could be tricky in her situation since it puts her at risk for another infection."

He presses his lips together in a tight, forced sympathetic smile, "Any family probably will need to be rested because it looks like she's going to need a bone marrow transplant."

"So you're doing _nothing_?" He spits out, heart beating loudly in his chest with anger. Raven puts her hand on top of his arm, reminding him to remain calm.

He doesn't flinch, which makes Bellamy incredibly disbelieving of his credibility if patients yell at him so often habituation occurred. "We put her on IV fluids and antibiotics, but unfortunately for now, yes, we just have to wait. We'll keep you updated."

Three hours in, he tells whoever's sitting on his left that he's going to find some coffee. Octavia finds him on the floor next to a vending machine about fifteen minutes later. His knees are drawn up to his chest, face in his hands. When she crawls down onto the floor next to him, he finally seems to notice her and his face shoots up out of his hands.

"I can't lose her, O," he remarks, weakly as he slowly turns to face her. Distant look in his eyes.

"I know how you feel, I do, but you can't shut us out-"

"No, you don't," he cuts in, voice harsh. "I _can't_ lose her."

Her eyes soften as his tiny sister pulls his head into her lap, stroking his hair back like his mother used to do. "If you'd just talk to me and not snap at me, I'd tell you I do know. I do know what it's like to love someone so much you can't survive without them."

"Odds were thirty-nine out of a hundred, she did pretty well," he mumbles and she flicks his head without warning. "Hey, don't talk like that. Don't talk like she's a lost cause, because she's not and you know it. Clarke's a fighter, she'll get through this. No matter how many times she gets knocked down, she always gets back up."

He sits up, looks at his sister and wonders when she became such a pulled together adult and he spiraled down into a pathetic mess. "Yeah." He's not used to feeling this lost while he's technically completely fine.

Octavia reasons, her calm voice lulling his head back into some sense of security, "Abby told Raven the best chance is a sibling but she'll be here in two hours and she'll get tested to see if she's a match anyway. If she's not, we'll wait until they find someone who is. Or, we'll make posters and offer people wads of Abby's rich white people cash to donate their bone marrow."

He's usually the one taking care of her, but he thinks he taught her pretty well. "We'll drive to Mexico to buy some on the black market."

She smiles, timid but sure, as wraps her arm around his, resting her head against his shoulder. "We'll figure it out."

And because she's Octavia and she wouldn't be his sister if she didn't, she raises her eyebrow, pushing his leg with her foot. "So. You're in love with Clarke."

"I was trying to be casual about it."

She pats his forearm, dryly. "Yeah, well. At least you tried, buddy."

.

For ten days, they only get to watch her from behind the glass-they put her in a medically induced coma to give her body time to heal. Honestly, he doesn't really give a shit if he has to watch her from behind a glass, two brick walls and a electric force field for the rest of his life, as long as she's breathing.

Abby gets to visit her on day eleven, but just for a few minutes. She still mostly just sleeps, barely able to comprehend the situation she's in for the little moments she is awake. Her mom tells them Clarke told her she didn't want to concern them with ' _what was probably just a cold_ ' and informs them she already gave her quite the beatdown about it. The same day she gets to go off ventilation. She goes back to solid food on day thirteen. Day fifteen, she can sit up.

It's weird hearing _about_ Clarke from other people than herself. For the past year he's seen her practically seen her every day. He's not going to pretend like they had important or deep profound conversations during every one of them, but they've _shared_. The good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, the messy, the dark, even the really disgusting-there's not a part of Clarke he hasn't seen.

(He's seen her laugh until she cried tears and gasped for air, and he's held her hair back while she emptied her stomach until there was nothing left to come out. He's been annoyed at her to the point where he thought drowning was a legit option, and he's been so enamored by her that he smiled just at the thought of her. He's seen her on her knees, ready to give in and he's seen her kicking and screaming, not ready to to go down without a fight.)

That he doesn't get to be here for there in such dark low moment in her life is killing him from the inside. If he's not at work, he's at the hospital-their friends think he doesn't notice, but they all take shifts sitting with him. His hands are constantly itching, an uneasy feeling settling in his stomach, an eery sense creeping over his spine ordering him to do something, but he can't. He's never felt so useless in his life.

Day sixteen, he gets to see her.

He says her name softly, knocking on the glass once, before it automatically slides shut behind him. She opens her eyes slowly, squinting at the bright light before he comes into focus.

"Hey," she greet him, voice hoarse from the tubes she was on for days as the corners of her lips turn up sleepily. She pushes herself up carefully, gently until she's in a sitting position. "I think," she pauses, trying to catch her breath. She's still weak from the recovery, her inhales sharp and short, sometimes a little jerky. "I think, you owe me. A congrats. I was one out of a lucky _three_. Out of a, out of a thousand to contract, sepsis."

"Didn't I warn you about Murphy's couch? I've known him for ten years and I've never seen him clean once." Her smile stretches and he puts his hand on her bed, the tips of their fingers touching. "I'd kiss you but my germs might kill you."

She scrunches up her nose in a half-assed manner, her fingers sliding over his. "Boys and, and their damn cooties."

He uses his free hand to take something out of back-pocket. "Lincoln drew you a card and everybody signed it."

"So retro." Griffin Girl is posing on a bed of incredibly detailed flowers (Lincoln can never separate his job from his personal life), a ' _fuck yeah_ ' drawn in a balloon next to her head in black marker-courtesy of Raven. Her eyes light up as she reads all of their messages on the inside.

He swallows tightly, watching her as he quietly informs her, "They need you." _I need you_ , is what he really wants to say but he can't force out. It's a selfish thing to say. He doesn't get to be selfish with her.

She looks up from the card-a kind of gentle fragility in her eyes he isn't used to-closing her fingers tighter around his before bringing his hand up to her face and pressing her dry lips against his skin. "I'm not going anywhere."

.

She ignores all his calls, texts, voicemails, emails. He's even desperate enough to contact her mother-for all he knows she's dead somewhere in a ditch. Abby tells him she wasn't a match, and Clarke had to go back in for another round of chemo. It explains what triggered her, not why he finds her at the Dropship.

"What are you doing here? The doctor specifically said you're not allowed in crowded spaces until-" he jerks her drink out of her hand and slams it down on the bar, sliding it away from her. She was still supposed to be recovering.

She scoffs, cheek leaning on her fist. "Until I die?"

"Jesus, Clarke," he mutters, almost in disbelief. He's about to yell at her, but he pauses-running his palm over his face and rubbing his forehead like it'll give him all the answers, instead. Through gritted teeth, he forces out, "What the hell happened?"

"Self-reflection," she grins, but her tone is bitter. She continues staring at the bar, refuses to meet his eyes. "Girl's gotta realize when she's more of a burden than a joyful addition to other people's life."

 _Fuck that_. Just-he grabs her arm, leading her outside and she doesn't protest. He's fucking paranoid that she's going to catch a cold from an open window and land back in a hospital bed and she's out here going to _bars_. O-fucking-kay, Clarke. Lick a public toilet seat while you're at it.

He drives her home, knuckles white from his grip on the steering wheel the entire ride there. She doesn't ask him to come in but he follows her up to her apartment anyway. "What's this about, Clarke? Trying to win the award for choosing the worst possible fucking moment to start the biggest self-pity party in the history of time?"

He isn't even mad that she feels sorry for herself-fuck, he wishes it was different all the time, that she was healthy or, or that it was him instead-but he _is_ mad that she's shutting him out. He thought they were a team.

"I'm tired, Bellamy," she announces, leaning her head against her door and closing her eyes, _so fucking childish_. He takes in a sharp breath, opening his mouth but she cuts him off before he has the chance to speak. "I'm tired of hearing bad news. Of bei- _feeling_ sick." She opens her eyes, and when she looks at him, they're just empty. Closed off. "You all have lives to get back to."

He laughs, humorless-dark look in his eyes. "Wow. You're such a fucking hero, Clarke. Bearing it all on your own so they don't have to. Congrats."

She presses her mouth against his, hard. It takes him a second to respond, to fight every instinct and pull away.

"You're drunk."

She looks away from him. "Isn't this what you want?"

"I _want_ you to talk to me."

"Why? Do you talk to all the other girls, too? Before you fuck them?" She sounds weak, hopeless. "Or do you reserve that especially for me? _Dying girl_?"

"Stop acting like a damn child," he exclaims, wincing at his own tone. He closes his eyes, trying to pull himself together. It's nearly impossible, but he manages to keep his voice steady. "You don't have to feel guilty. You don't need forgiveness for being sick, Clarke. We're all here for you, _I'm_ here for y-"

"Right." She looks disappointed, like he proved her a point. "The great Bellamy Blake, taking care of others."

He doesn't know what she wants anymore, needs him to say. "What are you even talking about?"

"That's what you do, Bellamy! You take care of people!" She inhales sharply, pinching the bridge of her nose. She's calmer, now, when she speaks. "You see a stray kitten and take it in. Raven breaks her leg and you drive her around for eight weeks. Monty loses his job and you help him pay his bills. Octavia needs a place to stay and you let her move in with you for six years." Her voice's cold, distant. "Clarke gets sick and you take care of her."

If that's honestly what she thinks of him and thinks that he-his first instinct is to yell and he doesn't want to yell at her, not like this. He dismisses her, forcing out, "I think you need to get some rest."

She laughs, but the corners of her mouth are turned down, expression almost frigid. "Fine."

The next morning he wakes up on her couch with a sore back and a pounding headache. He blinks up at the ceiling, recounting last night's memories. When he sits up, he sees Clarke's sitting on the chair across from the sofa, sipping on some tea.

He runs a hand through his hair, and he kind of wants to ignore her and be mad for a little while longer but he notices the bags under her eyes, the tiredness in her posture. Instead, he checks, "You feeling okay?"

She bites on her bottom lip, nodding slowly. She looks almost fragile. She nods towards an extra mug on the table, he picks it up, taking a sip even though his stomach's in knots.

"I'm sorry. For last night. I didn't-I shouldn't have blamed you for what I felt, and I-" Even though she was drunk and being stupid, he never thought she didn't mean it. She shouldn't have to pretend she did.

"It's not-" He licks his dry lips, shaking his head a little, he doesn't know how to explain _why_ it's different. It just is. "It's not like that, Clarke, not with you."

She scrunches up her face is disagreement. "Isn't it?" She leans forwards, resting her head into her hands for a moment, like she's collecting her thoughts. "Then what is it, Bellamy? Because we only fought-barely _talked_ until I got sick and now I, I find asmallpart of me hoping I won't get better because, because I don't want to know what happens if I do.

He puts down the mug, makes his way over to her, sinking down on the coffee-table across from her. He opens his mouth, closes it. He reaches out to brush some hair out of her face, instead and she leans into his touch. He doesn't understand. Softly, he tries, "What's going on, Clarke?"

"Bellamy," she breathes as she blinks away some tears, looking down at her hands. "I'm scared."

"You'll always have me, okay? I _got_ you. I'm here." He's here for vomit and dark days and worse news; he's here for bad reality television and junk food and laughing until they cry; he's here for her. "I'm here. Because I-" _Fuck it._ "I _love_ you, Clarke. And I don't- _I_ don't want to imagine a world in which you don't get better, because I don't want to know what happens to me if you don't."

She leans forward, burying her head against his neck, cheeks wet with tears. "You can't," she breathes against his skin, lets out a quiet sob, then continues, "you can't do this."

He presses her lips against her hair, rubbing her back gently. "Do what?

"This."

"We already did." Passed the point of return. "No take backsies," he jokes, but it's lame and she doesn't laugh. He doesn't think it's very funny either, just enjoys making life that much more difficult for himself.

She exhales frustratedly. "I'm _sick_."

"So?" He doesn't mean to say it like such a sarcastic asshole, but it just naturally comes out that way. "Who are you trying to talk out of this?"

"I might die." It stings.

He smirks, even though he shouldn't. "Technically, we're all dying."

"Bellamy," she snaps, weak. He brushes away her tears with his thumbs, framing her face with his hands.

He kisses her. Soft and wet with tears and gentle. He loves her, he loves her, he loves her.

She takes in a shaky breath, sliding her hand up to his neck. "I've never depended on someone like I depend on you."

And that's it, isn't it? He depends as much on her as she does on him. He's never had that before-never counted on someone or trusted them with every part of him-he was always being depended on. That was what was different. he didn't just love her, he needed her.

He presses a kiss to her forehead. "Me neither, so you better not die on me."

.

"One last night before I'm officially part of the living dead again."

"Lucky for you I have a thing for zombies."

"You better. I didn't shaved my legs today for nothing."

"I think if you hadn't, O might've done it _for_ you. It's her wedding."

"It's her fucking wedding, asshat," she corrects him flatly, tilting her head in such a mom way it makes him bite back a grin as he thinks back on Octavia's clear instructions for each of them earlier that day.

(Clarke, maid of honor, wasn't allowed to say anything to his sister today because she forgot to put on waterproof mascara and didn't want to look like an amazonian warrior bride. If Raven even mentioned an object made out of metal, she would be thrown out of her wedding party. No pranks for Jasper, no herbs for Monty, no sulking for Miller. A 250-word limit for Wick, a zero word limit for Murphy. Bellamy was not, _under any circumstances_ , allowed to talk either a) anything that happened before 2010, or b) anything that made him relatively happy because there was a ' _ninety-nine out of a hundred chance nobody cared_ '.

He thinks Wells is the only one who got off rule-free, although that's understandable. He's like, the best fucking person in the world. Clarke included.)

Her hand slides over his back as they move to a beat of the song Lincoln chose for Octavia. He's trying to keep an appropriate distance, but Clarke insists on pressing herself as close to him as possible. Which is a little difficult with all the puffy tulle in between them. "You're happy for her, right?"

His eye catches his sister, covered in white lace and admiring gazes, with her head on Lincoln's chest. "Of course I am. It's just always been her and me, you know. It was hard to let that go. I guess now-I don't know. It's different."

"Right. Because you started sleeping with me on a regular basis."

"Hey. That's not _all_ we do. We, like-talk."

She presses her lips together, like she's impressed by his sincere stupidity and a little amused by it, too. "I'm a totally chill girlfriend so I'll let that one slide."

 _Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars / Place your head on my beating heart / I'm thinking out loud / Maybe we found love right where we are_

"God, this song is so cheesy."

"You totally love it. You're going to love me when my hair's grey and we have ten irritating children and I have, like _really_ saggy boobs."

"You're annoying. Why are even together?"

She shrugs. "Sex."

" _Right_." He grins. "You know, Raven once told me how I was totally gone for you. Shortly after that I realized that was maybe true. I mean, we were never friends, but if you'd ever asked me to fuck you-I mean, I would've said yes."

"Ugh, I love you like, so much," she notes sarcastically, unimpressed look on her face. "Such a romantic."

Bellamy doesn't really say it that often, because he like, doesn't want it to be a big deal, or something. He brushes a stray of hair behind her ear. "I love you." He smirks, because he doesn't want it to be all emotional and dumb. "Grey, or no hair at all, saggy boobs from breastfeeding ten irritating children, or not."

"That's a weirdly specific thing to admit."

"Just, popped into my head, I guess."

She slides her hand under his jacket, squeezing his waist. "Well, if it makes you feel better-if you'd asked me to fuck you back then, I would've said yes, too."

He leans forward to press his lips against her cheek. "See. We _talk_."

"About sex."

" _But_. We do talk."

.

"I think I want to teach, like you," she tells him, head resting on his chest as they wait for the doctor to call them in. He's not one for PDA unless he's shitting with his sister, but right now he couldn't care less. He wants to be as close as possible to her, because either way-their lives are about to change. "Maybe art. Or, biology."

He shifts his head a little, so he can see her face. She doesn't seem resentful, or hopeless. Just, different. "What about being a perky-voiced kickass genius doctor?"

"Between my dad and myself, I've seen enough of the inside of a hospital to last myself at least five lifetimes." She shrugs, adjusting her head so she's looking at him. "We could carpool."

"Only if you promise not to come for my teacher awards."

"I can't promise anything. I'm naturally charming." She smiles, but turns a little sad and then it fades. She lifts her head off him, squeezing his hand. "It'll be okay, right?"

"Look, as long as they use the T word, we can handle it, right?" He wants to assure her, tell her either way they'll be fine, but he can't lie. He won't be fine.

"Don't say terminal and we'll be fine," she repeats, nodding to herself, like it's a going-to-battle mantra she's prepared. Maybe it is.

Reasoning, she adds, "That's a lot of pressure to put on a single word." She twists around the ring around her left ring finger nervously until he stops her.

"You said that life wasn't just about surviving, once."

"Still, it'd be nice. To, you know, live." She purses her lips, rolling her eyes and he chuckles a little. Somehow it still doesn't feel appropriate to laugh in an oncology ward.

She's looking at him, this intense look that makes his chest tighten, biting down on her lip.

He brings her hand to his mouth, kissing her knuckles. "You don't have to say it, I know."

"Well, I want to say thank you anyway. I don't think I would've been able to get through this without you."

He doesn't really believe it for a second, because she's Clarke, and she's so strong and she always finds a way. She would've found a way. But. He's glad she found him, too.

"I'd like to think you would have, only the sex would have been really boring and monotonous."

She laughs, and he shushes her by kissing her. He announces, "To save your ego-you helped me just as much as I helped you. Promise."

"My knight in shining armor," she retorts cynically, pressing a hand over her heart.

Later that night, half-naked with burgers and bad tequila, they celebrate the R-word. Fucking remission. He'll shout it from the rooftops if he has to.

.

They'd gotten so _unused_ to hospitals, worked hard to get it out of their systems that it made his skin crawl being back here. This time, though, she comes running into his arms and instinctively, he picks her up,wrapping his arms around her waist. She's pressing kisses to his cheek, jaw, neck, until finally, she speaks. "It worked, Bell. It _worked_."

He doesn't wonder about it anymore. How life would've been without cancer, without feeling like the world was against them, without having a second to waste. He trusts that he and Clarke would've found each other anyway. They have so much, now. Together. So much he's eternally grateful for.

"I'm _pregnant_."

"You're pregnant." He smiles into her neck. They have time.

.

(Raven texts him the follow morning.

 _I fucking told you, dude! Not compatible my perfect ass. You compatibled a baby together. You better name that firstborn after me! I deserve it. God, I'm awesome._

So what they willingly name their first little one Cleo Ravenna Blake? Before she corrupts his children with the real story, he has to buy her silence somehow.)

.&.

 _if that's what you wanted_  
 _if that's what you wanted_

.


End file.
